Helping Girls Cope with Bullying and Frenemies

The world of little girls begins as such a lovely place. Heart and rainbow doodles adorn notebook covers, best friendships are formed within seconds, and bold, exuberant voices carry squeals of carefree laughter and brazen delight. Happiness is worn on a sleeve, and anger is voiced with authentic candor.

Length-of-stay in this accepting, kindly world is time-limited for many girls, however. Seemingly overnight, sweet sentiments like, "I love your dress," turn into thinly-veiled criticisms such as, "Why are you wearing that dress?" Yesterday's celebratory birthday party becomes today's tool of exclusion, as guest lists are used to enforce social hierarchies. Long before most school programs begin anti-bullying campaigns, young girls get a full education in social aggression.

What can adults do to help kids cope with inevitable experiences of friendship conflict and bullying?

To Intervene or Not to Intervene?

Adults often struggle with the question of, "Should I intervene in a child's friendship problems?" The line between helicopter and hands-off can get confusing, as adults waver between wanting to protect young people from the pain of broken friendships and believing that bullying is an inevitable rite of passage. The bottom line is this; no child should have to find her way through painful conflict alone. Kids need adult support and insights when it comes to navigating the choppy waters of friendship, disguised as a weapon. Here are some fundamental ways parents can help:

Teach Her to Know it When She Experiences It

One of the things that makes relational bullying so insidious is its under-the-radar nature. It is things left unsaid and invitations not given. It is unexplained cut-offs in friendship. It is silence. This type of bullying is marked by crimes of omission that make it very hard for girls to put their finger on what they are experiencing in their friendships—yet the pain, humiliation, and isolation are unmistakable.

Adults play a critical role in keeping an open dialogue with young people and making them aware of the typical behaviors that mark this cruel form of social aggression. Knowledge is power; when girls know what relational bullying looks and feels like, they are better able to make a conscious choice to move away from friends who use these behaviors.

Some of the most common bullying behaviors that adults can make kids aware of include:

1. Excluding girls from parties and play dates

2. Talking about parties and play dates in front of girls who are not invited

"Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry." —Lyman Abbott

Anger is a normal, natural, human emotion. In fact, it is one of the most basic of all human experiences. And yet many girls, from a very early age, are bombarded with the message that anger = bad. Young girls face enormous social pressure to be "good" at all costs, a standard that makes it difficult for young girls to stop and say, "Hey. I don't like the way you are treating me right now. I'm feeling angry about what you just said/did/pretended not to do, and I'm not going to let you treat me that way anymore."

Adults who teach their children how to be angry effectively—by role modeling assertive communication skills and by accepting anger when it is respectfully expressed—fortify girls with the confidence to walk away from toxic friendships.

Encourage Her to Show Strength

As a social worker, I am all about teaching young people that it is okay to feel sad, or hurt, or angry, and that it is a good thing to talk about their emotions with others. Yet, when it comes to facing off with a frenemy, my best advice to caring adults is to teach young girls how to show resolute strength. Mind you, strength should not come in the form of physically or verbally aggressive responses that up the ante and escalate hostilities, but rather young people show strength when they use humor to deflect a situation and they stand up for themselves whenever their feelings are disrespected. A simple "Knock it off," or "Tell me when you get to the funny part" is a simple, powerful signal that a girl will not allow herself to be treated poorly.

As for the "talking about their emotions" part, adults should make themselves available as a sounding board for kids whenever possible. Kids need to have a safe place to be vulnerable—to vent, to talk about their friendship frustrations, and even to cry. Parents, relatives, teachers, counselors, and other caring adults are ideally suited to provide this safe place.

Teach Her to Know What She is Looking For

For school-aged children, friendships create a powerful sense of belonging. We want our girls to feel accepted and embraced by their peers—never to be used as pawns in someone else's popularity game. Fostering discussions and careful consideration of the values involved in making and maintaining healthy friendships is one of the most important things adults can do to help girls choose friendships wisely.

Around the dinner table, after class, during carpool, or anytime the mood is right, strike up a conversation (or, better yet, a dozen ongoing dialogues) about the values kids should look for in a real friendship. Make it into a finish-the-sentence game with a starter like, A Real Friend is Someone Who... Hopefully, the end of a young girl's sentence will sound something like:

• Uses kind words

• Takes turns and cooperates

• Shares

• Uses words to tell me how she feels

• Helps me when I need it

• Compliments me

• Includes me

• Is always there for me

• Understands how I feel

• Cares about my opinions and feelings

• Stands up for me

• Is fun to be with

• Has a lot in common with me

When kids understand how a healthy friendship should look and feel, they are best equipped to extricate themselves from friendships that are toxic and damaging.

The friendships that are so easily formed between girls during their youngest years quickly become complicated as early as the elementary school years. Adults play the key role in teaching kids about healthy friendships and supporting them through the inevitable pains of toxic ones.

Thank you for this informative article. Our 8th grader was recently burned by her mean girl former best friend. She had a tough time, this article is very helpful. Luckily she is a very talented personable young girl with other friends. But having her BF just suddenly turn on her was very hard. We had a long talk about "toxic people".

A lot of the described situations apply to boys too. And sometimes boys find it REAL hard to talk to adults about this.
Its seems to me that, also, sometimes it helps to, AFTER giving the "i will not be treated poorly" try to figure out what happened. Was the former friend having trouble ar home? was she feeling envy cause of a new developed talent?
It seems to me that sometimes, these articles focus a lot on how to "bullet proof" the victim, and leaves the bully or frenemie behind.

I think that that is where the teacher(s), guidance counselor, principal/asst. principals come into play. Regardless on whether it's a boy or girl, informing and involving the school on it (I listed a variety because it would depend on what's happening and how extensive it is), is an appropriate step.

As an elementary classroom teacher, it would allow me to keep an even closer eye on situations in the lunchroom or on the playground (typically where behaviors like this occur), which could help to stop the behaviors, getting additional help for the child being mistreated and to figure things out with the child who is doing the bullying (and, with many students, even just talking through how saying-or not saying-something, was enough to curb the behaviors).

You are right that there needs to be a cohesive effort for all "players"...It's just not up to the child who is being bullied to diagnose, etc. the bully. That intervention just needs to come from other individuals.

I see your point now, thanks.
What I meant was not to "diagnose" the bully. But rather attempt to understand the reasons behind a sudden change in friendship. This of course would not apply to regular bullies but friends that suddenly become frenemies. To me, a very strong (and difficult) issue to learn about frienship is to understand that if a friendship lasts years, there will be times in which you hate comments, actions or decisions your friend makes. Learning to see these "frenemies" actions as a stone in a road rather than the end of the road, helps the child to try to overcome problems AND gives the frenemie a chance to back up and re-think.
For example, a friend of mine asked "why are you acting like this? Are you afraid of something? I am your friend, you can trust me!" and that gave the other girl the chance to open up. It does not work if its done in public though. :D

As a parent to a son and a daughter and as a 1-5 educator, this article offers a variety of great ideas--for both girls and boys. I will say--the "cattiness" in girls really starts to show up in 4th and 5th grades (tailend of 3rd for a few). To parents--Please involve/inform the classroom teacher if this is something that is going on with your child. It allows the teacher to keep a closer eye on lunchroom/playground behaviors, etc.--and, sometimes a couple interventions by the teacher is all it takes to curb the behavior. I would then involve the guidance counselor if behaviors continued--and, certainly would jump beyond that if the behaviors are falling into the "Bullying/Harassment" umbrella. Those would be outlined in the Board of Education by-laws (for anyone who is wondering if behaviors are classified/included). It is certainly not okay!!! And, there are many things that can be done at the school level to help.

For all the experience I have had with the hundreds of students who have entered my classrooms, it surprised and saddened me when my (then) 3rd grader started to experience bullying. I am grateful that we were having conversations and that he felt comfortable to bring it up. It had gone from another boy just being "mean" to very targeted bullying. The name calling, the ridiculing, the physical response (pushing, shoving)...I was following what I "should"--working through things with my son--including ideas listed here, contacting the teacher and the other child's teacher to let them know, the bus driver, then contacting the guidance counselor--and then the principal as the bullying continued. I have asked if district protocol is being followed (in terms of disciplinary action since this 100% falls into the district's zero-tolerance policy on bulling/harassment), have met with many people...and am grateful that things (1.5 years later) seem to have calmed down.

I also think it is really important to discuss what really is mean or bullying behaviour and what is a difference in interests or a desire to spend time with other friends occasionally.
I've had to do a lot of work with my boy to explain that his friends don't always want to play his 'fantasy role-play' games and that this isn't being mean ... each friend has a variety of activities they enjoy and sometimes they will want to go an play football or tag games (which my boy doesn't enjoy) and sometimes they are happy to join in his games. We have role-played, ourselves, a lot of "Can we meet up at the next break then?" and other 'acceptance of situation' phrases.
The same has applied to my boy complaining that "F was talking to M at playtime today and that's really not fair" Well - didn't F spend a lot of time with you over the weekend? Perhaps M felt left out? and M would like to have some time with F as well?
I have navigated this with many many children in school as well, particularly groups of girls ... Are they REALLY excluding one or more girls from their game? Or are they just busy playing a game that the others are not interested in? Being able to problem solve ... "A is feeling rather left out at the moment because she hasn't seen that film and doesn't know how to join in/want to join in/can't join in .... would you be able to play a different game next breaktime that A could be included in?"
Or role-playing ... "I know we're playing horsey games at the moment, and you're not really into riding, I promise we'll play something that you are more interested in next time!"
In other words, each individual or group of children has the right to play games or talk about interests that 'everyone' is not interested in, but consideration should be given to change topic or game regularly to include as many people as possible.

First things first. We need to stop calling it bullying and start calling what it is: harassment. Bullying is simply an establishment of pecking order which we do all the time without realizing it because it's part of our nature. Harassment is a step beyond that. This is where the calls for simeone's death occurs and pressuring them to commit suicide. It starts out small and then it gets worse and worse until the person is driven to suicide,

We need to teach our kids to learn to pick themselves up off the ground and brush things off and when to get an adult involved. Set them up for success instead of failure as a future adult. If they're calling you names and such, brush it off. If they're ignoring you, brush it off. When they tell you that you're worthless and should die or push or beat the snot out of you, THEN get an adult. I'm also one that encourages one to fight back. If someone punches you, you punch them back but they must punch you first. "Violence is never the answer" is ninny garbage to keep little kids from killing one another. A rapist isn't going to stop just because you ask or told them to. Nor a robber or murderer. You have to physically stop them by killing them or incapacitating them. A kid won't stop until you make them stop. Telling on them will likely get them beaten up later anyway. "Snitches get stitches" as the saying goes. So let's teach them to be a tree that can weather the storm instead of a dainty flower that drowns when there's too much rain.

If you can, avoid them at all costs. Kids confuse acquaintances with friends. True friendship is hard to come by even in your adult years. I had a girl who I thought was my friend but she used me and destroyed my dream career and I let her under the pretense of being friends despite knowing full well what she was doing. A friend that coerces you into doing something, especially when is a bad or negative thing, isn't your friend. A friend would help you hide a dead body without asking questions--in other words, have your back no matter what. When you have a small group of people (1-5), you can safely assume they are your friends until they break that trust, if you have more than that, yeah...most aren't your friends. They're there because they need you, And once they're done, they'll throw you away like a dirty napkin.

These are the things we need to teach our kids. You can't always run away. If you can, do so. If not, tough it out. Unlike what Hollywood has taught us, don't rely on someone else for your measure of self-worth. The only opinions that matter is yours, your family (if you're tight with them), and God (if you're a believer). It's good to have a feeling of belonging but don't let it rule you. For me, I'm more comfortable alone. I don't mind hanging out with others, but I won't ask to do so. I've also stopped caring about what people think of me and their expectations of me. And my stress level and mind has thanked me for it.